In Argentina, they say that if you want to understand the priestly soul of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, then you have to know the villas miserias, literally “villas of misery,” meaning the slums in Buenos Aires where the poorest of the poor are found.

Persecution for conversion to Christianity – a faith with the “Great Commission” to share the Gospel – is rising globally, along with persecution of some very long-established, even 2000-year-old, Christian communities.

We aren’t ghosts trapped in bodies. We’re made of dirt, we’re made to work with dirt – and yet we have in us the very breath of God. Work itself is part of God’s original blessing, not his curse after the fall.